This invention relates to a portable, direct drive abrasive saw particularly well suited for cutting ceramic floor tile, bricks, or other masonry, metal, or refractory materials.
During the installation of ceramic flooring or roof tile, it is often necessary for the tile installer to specially trim the tile pieces to precisely fit along walls, around pipes, door moldings, and other protuberances. While, in some instances, it is acceptable tile installation practice to score and to break the tile along the score line, this oftentimes results in uneven or jagged edges for the tile. In recent years, tile installers, especially those installing relatively expensive, glazed floor tiles, have utilized rotary abrasive saws to precisely cut the tile to a desired dimension thereby to result in a neat appearance for the tile and also to prevent the inadvertent breakage of the tile along dimension lines not desired.
Typically, tile cutting saws utilize a rotary abrasive blade mounted on an arbor shaft supported by anti-friction roller bearings. The support for the bearings was in turn supported on a frame and a frictional horsepower induction electric motor was mounted on the frame remote from the arbor shaft and the saw blade. The motor drove the shaft by means of a V-belt and pulley arrangement. These fractional horsepower induction motors were in and of themselves relatively heavy. For example, a one horsepower 115 volt motor may weigh 23 pounds or more. In addition, the application or mounting fixture for the fractional horsepower motor was, of necessity, made of relatively heavy gauge metal and the frame for supporting the arbor shaft and bearings support assemblies was heavy. Still further, the V-belt and pulley drive necessitated that it be enclosed within a guard.
Because of the use of the fractional horsepower electric motor and its belt drive, and the arbor shaft and the rotary abrasive saw blade were fixed in horizontal position. Thus, it was not possible to make bevel cuts on pieces of tile or other work. Still further, the size and weight of known prior art tile saws was such that the saws were not portable. In practice, with the reservoir of the prior art tile cutting machines filled with water to serve as a coolant circulated over the abrasive blade while cutting the tile, the prior art tile cutting saws weighed in excess of 80 pounds.
Thus, a tile setter, upon installing a tile floor, would position the tile cutting saw at a particular location in the room and each time he had to trim a tile, it was necessary for him to make the desired measurements for the particular tile, to leave his work location, cut the tile to the desired dimensions, and return to his working position for installation of the tile. On installing roofing tiles, the tile saw was set up on the ground and it was necessary for the tile setter to take the dimensions for the intended tile, to climb down a ladder from the roof and cut the tile to the desired dimensions, and to then climb the ladder for installation of the tile.
Still further, the size and weight of these prior art saws made it difficult at the end of the day for the tile setter to properly secure the tile cutting saw on the jobsite or to put them in his truck or car, and thus made them vulnerable to theft.